golly gee, I also remember how Iraq’s masses of Soviet gear were supposed to inflict massive losses on US forces in the 1991 Gulf War....that even if we could win it would be such a bloody quagmire that our military would never recover.... how our high-tech equipment would be breaking down all over the place there.... after all, we’d been reading/hearing all about the problems with the M1 Abrams tanks, the F15s and F16s, the F117s, the B1s and B2s etc. etc. etc.
Not saying that there are not often serious issues which need to be addressed, but c’mon we’ve been told this kind of stuff about every advanced weapons system for decades.
They were saying the same thing about the U.S.S. Monitor.
There will always be naysayers when it comes to military technological advancements.
In regard to your “high tech equipment” comment; in DS/DS, FMC rates for USAF aircraft were at their highest in years. The maintainers were working their tails off. (I know, I was one of them.)